


Normal (For Loose Definitions Thereof)

by cat_77



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angel Blood, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 01:25:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15232305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: Sometimes, Clary missed her boring, normal life. Others, say like after being tossed into traffic by some rogue vampires, not so much.





	Normal (For Loose Definitions Thereof)

**Author's Note:**

> For the “accidents” square at hc_bingo.
> 
> * * *

Clary Fray had lived her life as a normal, mundane human for years, far longer than she had lived it with any inkling about this whole Nephilim thing. She knew the ins, she knew the outs, and she knew that some things, while not necessarily better, at least made more sense. And she meant that going both ways.

That said, she kind of wished for one over the other right about now. 

It had been a regular night, or as regular as they came these days. She wasn’t glamoured or invisible or anything like that. She had been walking along, minding her own business, purposefully taking the long way back to the Institute just to have that little extra bit of a break, maybe be inspired to sketch something later that evening. So of course she came across a trio of vampires that must have been doing something they weren’t supposed to, not that she would have known if they had simply walked away and moved on. They saw her, they freaked out, and she found herself in a situation she really didn’t need to be in, right up until one of them decided he could simply toss her right out of his way.

Unfortunately, out of his way meant out into traffic. There was the blare of a horn and the brightness of lights and a squeal that might have been brakes, and then a whole lot of pain.

She next woke up to the sound of soft yet annoying beeps and a warm tingly sensation throughout her body that told her she was well and truly drugged. So much better than the time she had tried to do a backflip when she was seven and ended up spraining her wrist. Come to think of it, she had healed from that scarily quickly if Simon was to be believed. Parts of her still hurt though, and it was something she just wasn’t as used to any more. Usually it was pain followed by a wave of her magic wand – yes, she knew it was a stele but it was fun to annoy Luke – and then everything was all better. With that in mind, she opened her eyes and looked for the little sliver of magic metal to do just that, and found something far more annoying instead.

She was in the hospital, as in an actual mundane hospital. They had changed her into a gown and had clipped her to all sorts of monitors as well as stuck her through with a needle that led up to an IV pumping chemicals away into her bloodstream. Her right leg was in a cast that stopped just shy of her knee and her left arm was in one that stopped just below her elbow. Her ribs had a tightness that spoke of being wrapped for support and she had a cannula shooting oxygen up her nostrils. There were all sorts of other little sticky pulls over dull aches that spoke of bandages and hopefully not stitches. He stele was nowhere in sight, and neither was her phone nor her own clothing.

Just as she began to contemplate how annoying that was as well as just how she could get to where she needed to be, an unknown voice announced, “It looks like she’s waking up.”

There were two nurses who came in then, or maybe a nurse and an intern, she couldn’t really tell the difference as both kind of floated before her. Drugs: she had the good ones. They ran down her obvious injuries and started to ask what she assumed was a standard schpeel about who she was and what she had been doing and why she had been out where she was when she was. It wasn’t like she could tell them that she was a mystical part-angel hunter of demons without getting locked up or at least having a full psych eval, so instead she cut them off and asked, “Do you know what happened to my stuff?” 

There was a delay, because of course there was. One of them continued to ask questions and it was really hard to keep with a cover story while the world spun around her, but the other left and returned with two bags only to leave again to go do more important things. One held her bloody and torn clothing, and one held her personal belongings, also known as her phone, stele, condensed blade, fake ID, and a handful of small bills.

Her phone was truly smashed, its screen cracked and a chunk missing which told her the chances of calling or texting someone useful had just diminished greatly. Her stele would have been awesome, but the combination of casts made it so she wouldn’t quite be able to maneuver to wave it over the runes she needed, even if she dared to do so with an obvious audience and even if it worked through the plaster. The blade she refused to address with them and kind of hoped they thought was just a prop of some sort, or maybe a toy that wasn’t of the inappropriate sort.

She saw a phone, a boring landline type, on the little wheelie cart next to her bed. “Can I use this?” she asked, already trying to reach it. “I really need to let some people know where I am.”

The nurse wanted contact info and she wasn’t really wanting to share, even when the woman offered to dial to make it easier what with the cast and everything. She figured the call was probably going to be traced anyway and went the safe route: she called Luke at work, a known police detective with a number she had memorized since around the time she knew what numbers were. Only he didn’t answer. It went straight to voicemail and so she left a stilted message and tried to pretend that the nurse didn’t listen to every word.

She did her best to look pathetic and managed to cajole the woman into schlepping off to get her a pudding cup, even if she had still not answered why she called a cop. If she happened to line it up with when there was either a shift change or a severe lapse in coverage, so be it. The woman left and, in the extremely limited time she had, Clary called Simon, mainly because she had that number memorized as well and mainly because it would go to a known acquaintance of Luke’s versus some unknown and possibly blacked out miasma of a location like the Institute.

Simon was understandably excitable, for all of the twelve seconds he was allowed to speak. He verified it was her, she managed to get out that she was at a hospital and not held captive somewhere, and then Jace ripped the phone from his hands and demanded to speak to her since he was listening in anyway.

Apparently she had been missing for longer than she thought. It made sense, kind of, as she would have been taken to the hospital, triaged, treated, and changed before shoved into her current holding room, but the timing still felt off. She didn’t have time to dwell on that as she knew the clock was ticking down to when Nosey Nurse would return, so she listed where she was based upon a sticker on the phone, hoped it was real, and hung up. She had flopped back against the really thin pillow by the time generic chocolatey goodness arrived and played with the cord absently like it was one really long fidget spinner. She had debated trying the stele anyway, casts or no casts, but it had been moved just out of reach and there was a very good chance she would raise a lot of eyebrows if she suddenly upped and walked out of there on her own.

She pretended that she was getting drowsy again, an act that was really easy to do considering the meds and the whole body using its energy to heal itself thing. She closed her eyes and tried to let her body slowly go limp, and then listened in while the nurse whispered frantically with someone who didn’t arrive until it was too late to see them without blowing her cover.

“She has the same markers in her blood as the other one,” one of them pointed out in hushed tones.

“Same type of tattoos, too,” the second one said. “Think they’re in the same gang? Using something new to hit the streets?”

“Let’s hope not,” the first one huffed a reply. “I can barely keep up with the usual stuff, let alone all these new designer ones. There’s something though. We need to keep an eye on her, just in case.”

“Who’d she call anyway?”

“A cop, which means she’s either rich enough to have one in her pocket, or something much bigger and probably even more illegal is going on.”

Their voices faded after that, and it was harder to figure out what they were saying, especially without being to activate her hearing rune. She peeked one eye open to find that they had wandered further into the hallway and were scouring over some chart or another. She had a vague recollection of Jace saying something about mundane doctors from when he had escaped Valentine, and he had all sorts of little bandages on him when he came to revive Alec. Given that wounds that tiny would take all of about a minute for a Shadowhunter to heal, she suspected he had been in their care. 

But the chances that they were taken to the same place? And happened to have the same Nosey Nurse? Who happened to make a connection between them? Maybe her time with other Nephilim had made her cynical, but she doubted life ever offered such coincidences.

They spoke of blood, which was never a good thing. Aside from the standard Nephilim differences, both she and Jace had the addition of pure angel blood. It suddenly made sense why her mother had allowed the bare minimum medical care to keep her in school all those years. She idly wondered if her mother had altered the files, managed to keep something so rare from curious human consumption. She then realized that she needed to focus because only bad things could come from anyone investigating her, or Jace for that matter, on a cellular level. 

They were going to need to find the samples and destroy them. This was not going to be an easy task if she was still hobbling around, covered in plaster and fiberglass, even if she was able to activate an obfuscation. But the mundanes really did not need to be testing and trying to replicate something that well and truly could be called holy and a gift from the divine. Of course, worse yet would be a opportunistic Downworlder who figured out how they were different even than standard and put two and two together to get the formula for making their own Daylighters. She had no idea what angel blood would do to a werewolf or seelie or any of the other mystical and/or magical beings. Maybe good, maybe bad, most likely a game changer and so far those had only led to chaos in her life.

She was still contemplating all of this when she heard a blissfully familiar voice whisper, “Hey, Clary, you awake?”

She smelled leather and metal and the underlying tang that was undeniably Jace. The little beeps on the monitor next to her sped up slightly, and she had to actively try to calm her racing heart before anyone investigated. “Obfuscated?” she mouthed more than spoke.

“For now, yeah,” Jace admitted. He pushed her hair off of her forehead and ran his fingers through the strands, the gesture familiar and calming in ways she didn’t want to admit. “What happened?”

“Vamps threw me into oncoming traffic, maybe by accident. Phone and I got smushed,” she murmured. She couldn’t help herself, and fully opened her eyes just for the reassurance that he was real. She closed them quickly enough, the image of his concerned and confused face etched into her memory. “Being watched. They have a sample of my blood and apparently still have one of yours somewhere too.”

“Shit,” he breathed. She heard him pace, boots feather light on the linoleum but she could recognize the pattern anywhere. “We might need more than me to break you out then. Someone’s got to get those samples before they figure out what they can do.”

“And me suddenly disappearing is going to raise eyebrows,” she guessed. “Simon?” she suggested. It would be almost funny, in a sense, if they used a special vampire to sniff out special blood.

The hand was back and she gave into the urge to lean into it. “He’s getting Luke since you called him too. Also because of something he called a ‘hit and run’ and that the cops would be involved anyway.” She had no idea if the driver had stopped or not, honestly. She had been far too unconscious at the time. It made sense that Luke might be needed to make any official file or inquiry disappear though.

“Open to suggestions,” she sighed. “Also to the possibility of Ben and Jerry’s because that really was some horrible pudding they gave me.”

She could hear the smirk in his tone when he promised, “I’ll see what I can do.” The hand pulled away and she wasn’t ashamed to admit she frowned. At this point, anyone watching her had to think she was talking in her sleep. Hopefully that would be the worst of it. Of course, that’s when Jace said, “I have an idea, but I don’t know if you’ll like it. You okay hanging here for a few more minutes?”

She snorted, not much more than a huff of breath. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere any time soon,” she pointed out. She flopped the arm with the IV and monitors attached to make her point.

Jace didn’t comment, but she wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t understand or was too busy with his plotting and planning. He didn’t go far and he returned quickly enough, even paused to place a chaste kiss on her forehead before he darted out of the way when the door swung open to allow Nurse Nosey back in. 

“You asleep, sweetheart?” the nurse asked, and it took a lot of willpower not to respond. “Good, you should rest,” she soothed. There was some rustling as she checked lines and feeds and whatnot, and then there was a sharp pinch of a needle against her skin that did make her flinch from the whole unexpected aspect of it all. She had been curved over her, and must have been blocking the view from Jace if he didn’t try to stop her. The nurse soothed her absently after tucking the syringe and vial away, apparently still convinced she was sleeping, and hummed more to herself than what she had to think was an empty room when she said, “Just need one more sample of this to see what it is, okay? If it hasn’t broken down in your system yet... lord knows how long they make these things last now.” 

The footsteps faded away and she opened her eyes to tell Jace, “I think she just took more blood. Or maybe is about to?” Her head was swimming and she glanced at the damned line feeding the drugs into her system. She couldn’t be certain, especially the way the numbers faded in and out, but she thought the dosage had been increased. At the very least, the numbers seemed higher. Probably trying to keep her out of it until they had an answer or her mysterious cop friend arrived. She couldn’t quite blame her if her previous experience was with Jace and his earlier escape.

Jace’s head shot up at that. “I’ll follow her. If she has it, I can take it and anything else. If she doesn’t, then maybe she finds herself stuck in a locked room somewhere...” She whimpered despite herself. The world was spinning, she hurt despite everything pumped through her, and her one piece of comfort wanted to run away. “Shh... it’ll only take a second. Reinforcements are on the way.”

She wasn’t sure what that meant, and it annoyed her. The whole damsel in distress thing did, really. She watched him leave and regretted not asking him to turn off the drip, but then wondered if his lack of knowledge of mundane medicine would have made it worse or better. She could picture him accidentally setting off every alarm as much as she could see him giving her an overdose.

At least she didn’t have to wait long. She had barely been able to reach for the damned line herself, her cast in the way as it stopped full movement of her fingers, when she heard someone approach. She had hooked her thumb under the tubing and squeezed it against the hard plaster, ready to yank when she heard, “Oh, no, Biscuit, stop before you make it worse.”

Only one person in her entire life had ever called her that, and she looked up to see Magnus swan in, decked out in his best per usual, Alec right behind him. Her entire body went lax at that, tension and worry fading faster than her consciousness. “They’re drugging me,” she accused, words slurring in a worrying way.

Magnus was at her side, ringed fingers soothing as they slid up and down her arm right above the port. “Let’s see if we can do this without making everyone think you’re coding?” he asked pointedly. He waved his fingers and the equipment was bathed in blue. The air stopped shooting up her nose but the machine to her right continued to beep away in the same precise pattern. The cool tingle of the meds being pumped into her also stopped, followed by a sharp pain as the needle was removed completely.

She yanked the cannula away and let Alec untangle it from her hair with a huff. “Please say that you are glamoured, or this whole room is?” she asked, words barely intelligible. Magnus waved his hand again and her mind began to clear. She smiled in thanks and swore she could physically feel the meds leaving her system before she explained, “They keep checking in on me. They have my blood and maybe Jace’s from before. Think it’s a new drug.”

Alec, of course, went into full Head of the Institute mode at that. “We can’t have mundanes getting their hands on Shadowhunter blood,” he pointed out, a little unnecessarily since that was the point she had been trying to make. His thumb was making soothing circles right above her ear though, right where she tended to get her worst headaches, so she decided not to mention it.

“Especially augmented blood like these two have,” Magnus agreed. He continued to unclip things and she wondered where he had learned about it all. “Blondie mentioned the same. If I could... Oh, good, he’s back.”

Jace jogged into the room and shook his head. “The nurse put everything into this tube thing in the wall. I couldn’t follow it,” he complained.

“It’s probably on its way to a lab,” Magnus pointed out. “I can corrupt the samples, maybe shatter the vials, but will need some of your blood to find them. Any paperwork or files will be another matter all together.”

He produced a small blade out of thin air and Jace readily held out his hand. Clary attempted to do the same, but Magnus shook his head and muttered something about her losing enough of it already while he grabbed for the blanket he had used to sop up the trickle from when he removed the IV. There was glowing, there was flashing, there were words that made no sense, and there was a spark of electricity that she felt dance along her skin for a fraction of a second before it was all over.

“Done?” Alec confirmed. When Magnus nodded, he ordered, “Get her out of here. I’ll track down the files.”

“You’re going to need help,” Magnus pointed out. Alec was good with computers, but Clary didn’t know if he had the skills to hack a hospital’s database.

“So’s he,” Alec countered as he jerked a thumb in Jace’s direction.

Jace rolled his eyes and started to pull down the blankets. The tips of his ears turned red when he realized that she wore pretty much nothing but the thin hospital gown beneath them. Changing tactics, he started to wrap her in the blankets for additional coverage before preparing to bodily lift her, casts and all.

“Where’s Simon?” she asked. Not that she didn’t trust Jace, but Simon’s vampire strength and speed could get her someplace safe, unless Magnus was planning on opening a portal right there in the room. Also, she kind of missed her best friend and was really surprised he hadn’t come along knowing where she was.

“Getting Luke,” Jace explained patiently as he lifted her bridal style. She had the vague recollection of him saying something similar before and wondered if it was the remnants of the drugs or the pain messing with her memory. She wasn’t sure if Jace had activated his strength rune or was just ignoring the weight of carrying another person, possibly to show off. Some minor shifting and readjusting by Magnus and she didn’t even poke him with her casts. He cradled her close and she reveled in the press of his lips against her forehead before he added, “They were coming up with a cover story. Our job is to get you out of here so that they can use it.”

Magnus raised a hand and looked as though he really was going to summon a portal, but Alec pulled his hand down and away. “Incoming,” he whispered.

A man in the same colored scrubs as the nurses poked his head in and frowned. “Go watch the hit and run victim until Louise gets back,” he muttered in a mocking, high pitched voice. 

He stepped up to the electronic terminal and the others all smashed themselves back and out of the way so as not to bump into him. A wave of a card and a quick code, and a new screen pulled up. It flickered for a moment and Clary caught Magnus wiggle his fingers right before the text on the screen changed. The man blinked, smacked the side of the monitor as if it was nothing more than a computer glitch, and then sighed heavily.

“Sure, Janine, would love to, but the girl’s back down in x-ray,” he grumbled. He walked away with the gripe of, “Seriously, check your facts before passing crap off to others.”

Clary let out a breath that she hadn’t realized she had been holding, and then tried not to wince as she was jostled when Jace readjusted his hold on her. “Was that enough to access to files?” she asked hopefully.

Magnus shook his head but Alec held up the little card of plastic that had been at the man’s waist. “This might be,” he grinned. She watched as he activated his memory rune and easily got access to the system.

“I’m impressed, Alexander,” Magnus purred. “You’ll have to tell me more about where you learned to pickpocket like that.”

“Later,” Jace cut him off. “Do your flirting, foreplay, whatever it is after we get her home?”

Alec blushed but Magnus looked wholly unaffected. Instead, he said, “The surge from the portal might have an adverse influence on the computer systems.”

“It’ll fry them before you have a chance to wipe things,” Jace guessed. A shrug, and then he added, “Or after, which would look suspicious.”

“There’s a family lounge on this floor,” Magnus directed instead of confirming his assumption. “Follow the hallway, take two lefts and a right. I’ll open the portal there once we’re finished.”

Jace nodded and easily slipped out of the room, still carrying Clary as though she weighed precisely nothing. There were a few stutter stops along the way as he had to duck around people, but he took a wheeled cart to his own hip versus letting anything get near her. That’s why Clary felt bad for finally giving in to the need to whimper when they reached the appointed room. She felt clammy and overheated and swore there was a bead of sweat dripping right down the center of her back.

Jace slowly lowered her onto one of the couches that lined the room and then arched his own back as if to crack it. He paused midway through to ask, “Are you okay?”

“I’ve got two broken limbs, bruised if not cracked ribs, and a hangover from whatever they gave me,” she huffed, trying for humor and failing terribly.

Jace’s eyes narrowed with concern. “How bad were they broken if they’re still healing?” he asked. Quieter then, he mused, “Usually an iratze would have you at least halfway there by now, unless they were shattered. And Magnus has healed werewolf bites, so this should have been easy for him.”

Clary let her head loll back against the scratchy cushion of the couch. “No iratze. Couldn’t reach my stele and don’t know if it’d work through the casts anyway,” she said as she closed her eyes. She tried to steady her breathing but managed to just feel limp and wrung out. “Magnus cleared out the drugs they were giving me so I could think again. But, when he did...”

“He took away all of your pain relief,” Jace finished for her. “He probably assumed you were already healing.”

She felt the cushion dip as he sat beside her and was in no way surprised when she opened her eyes to find him with his stele already in hand. “Where’s your iratze? I can get it for you, or we can draw a new one,” he offered. He swiped his stele over the rough area of the existing rune, waited, and took her continued grimace as a sign it didn’t work.

She glanced down at herself and the way that she was pretty much a blanket burrito with the exception of her injured arm falling on top instead of under the wrap. Her upper arm was already fairly marked up with runes, clearly visible to all. “Please no facial tattoos,” she warned. 

She started to struggle with the blankets to find some unmarked skin for him, but he tucked the stele away and said, “I have a better idea.”

He pulled her into his lap and damned near wrapped himself around her. She looked up in time to see his eyes glow golden, a sight that never failed to take her breath away. It was more than his eyes though, as she felt a near physical charge where he touched her, even through the blankets. That charge rushed through her before it coalesced where her iratze lay, hidden beneath the plaster and fiberglass. There was a fair chance he lit up more than that along the way, but that one rune in particular surged with far more power than she had ever felt with a simple swipe of a stick of mystical metal.

“Whoa,” she said, and knew it was not the world’s most intelligent commentary.

“Feeling better? At least a little bit?” he asked with only the slightest hint of a smirk.

It was a weird sensation, feeling bones knit back together. It wasn’t quite painless, but it also hurt far less than it had any right to. It was a bit disorientating and her head swam from it, but more in a natural endorphins and less of a foreign chemical response sort of way. She took a cautious breath and felt her lungs and rib cage expand fully for the first time since she woke up, hindered only by the bandages. There was still a tiny bit of too much movement, a vibration of sorts, but it felt like at least one bag of bricks had been removed from on top of her chest.

A noise drew her out of her thoughts and put Jace on high alert. It was a nurse, hair elegantly braided away from her face and hands on her hips as she let out a put upon sigh. “Can someone please tell me why two Shadowhunters are running around my hospital? And why one just did something I haven’t seen in all my years?” she asked the world at large. 

Before either of them could answer, another voice replied, “Three, actually, and it is quite the impressive little trick he does.” Magnus corrected as he came around the corner, his wide eyes the only sign that he was not nearly as composed as he first seemed. He pecked the woman on the cheek and said, “Hello, Catarina, my dear. I saw you following them and figured I would stop something stupid from happening.”

“Stupider than this?” she asked with a gesture to where Clary still slouched on the couch, Jace now in a protective position in front of her, blade already out.

Magnus rolled his eyes. “Put that away, Blondie,” he ordered more than asked. “Catarina is a dear friend and no threat to you.” Quieter, he added, “And you would need far more than that little toy to stop her.”

Jace reluctantly returned his blade to its holster, but pointedly kept a hand on it. “Why did she follow us?”

“Because there’s Shadowhunters skulking around my place and that never leads to good things,” she huffed. She turned to Magnus and guessed, “Can I assume that the third is that pretty boy of yours?”

“Alexander is attempting to erase any evidence of the visit,” Magnus confirmed. “Biscuit here was brought in while unconscious and unable to take other precautions.” Clary figured that was a polite way of saying she was knocked out and dragged in without permission.

The newly named Catarina rubbed the bridge of her nose and looked outright pained. “They would have taken samples to see if there would be any interactions or anything in her system. We’ve got to...”

“Taken care of,” Magnus assured her. Then, because he was firing on all cylinders even if Clary herself wasn’t, added, “Though this fine young idiot was also taken in a while back and they have samples from him as well. I believe I found them all, but could always use your assistance to verify this is true.” He raised his eyebrows hopefully and she wondered just what he was going to trade for keeping them safe. No one did anything for free in the Shadow World, that was one of the very first things she learned. 

Catarina looked like she wanted to bang her head against a wall. “He’s the source of the John Doe sample that’s got everyone in a huff,” she surmised. She waved her hand and a mist of purplish-blue formed around it before disappearing into nothing. “There, even obsessive Doctor Williams’ samples should be gone. Of course, if you had told me about this before, we wouldn’t have to go digging through his private files to erase the data.”

Magnus batted his eyes at her in an almost comical way. “Your assistance would, of course, be greatly appreciated?”

“I’ll go help pretty boy,” she agreed. “But only because Nephilim blood is a risk, to the humans if they want to experiment with it and to the hospital as a whole if word gets out it was here.”

“Especially these two Nephilim,” Magnus muttered under his breath.

Catarina paused and pursed her lips. “These are two of Valentine’s experiments, aren’t they?” she guessed. Clary bristled at being called such, but not nearly as much as Jace did. The warlock held up a placating hand. “No offense meant, and I don’t blame you for what that madman did. It’s just one more reason why these samples need to be contained and maybe something that should have been disclosed up front, even if I should have figured it out on my own with Mr. Goldeneyes over there.” The last part was said with a pointed glare towards her colleague in the mystical arts.

“I’ll owe you one?” Magnus offered, and even Clary knew having a warlock of his power in your debt was a huge thing.

“You already owe me several,” she snorted, somehow still elegant in the action. “And I owe you and so on and so on. Eventually, we’re going to lose track of who owes who what. For now, let’s just say the reduction of risk is worth the action.” So far the poor thing seemed more exasperated than annoyed with everything that had been thrown at her in such a short span of time. Then again, as a warlock, she had probably seen her fair share of weirdness over the years.

“At least let me gift you with those little truffles you liked so much from Fauchon in Paris?” he insisted.

She grinned, eyes lit up in utter glee. “You know I will never turn those down,” she admitted. She turned her attention back to Clary and looked at her appraisingly. Somehow, Clary had the feeling it was far more than a surface review. “Keep those casts on her until those bones fully knit and let me know if there’s any complications? And for the sake of whatever you lot find holy, don’t let her take on a pack of werewolves or something ridiculous like that until she’s healed?” 

Clary had no idea why she felt compelled to correct her, but she did. “It was vampires. Young ones that thought I caught them at something, no idea what though.”

“Well, that explains the trio hiding out in the laundry room. They probably didn’t realize they could get through most of this place without exposure to sunlight. I’ll bind them there until you can deal with them?” she offered. As an aside, she added, “I honestly don’t know if they are here to apologize or finish the job. I had figured they were just looking for a snack from the blood bank.”

Jace looked ready to charge down and defend her honor or something ridiculous like that, but Magnus stopped him before he could really even start with a promise of, “I will have Raphael himself take care of them. If they were not his, they were at least in his domain. Either way, he will have some words to say about it.”

“They need more than words,” Jace growled. “They threw someone into oncoming traffic.”

“Someday I will tell you about the ‘words’ I once witnessed him give a young fledgling. I believe Tyrone holds the scars to this very day,” Magnus mused.

“That’s because all of us refused to heal him,” Catarina agreed wryly. She looked at the admittedly very tired Clary and her overprotective entourage. “I’m assuming we’re done here. Take her home, yours or hers, and get the hell out of my hospital.” The last part was said with no heat, and an almost smile. Clary wasn’t sure what to make of her what with her limited experiences with warlocks, but she put Catarina decidedly more on the Magnus side of the spectrum than on the Iris. Much like Magnus, she could probably kill them all with her pinky, but chose when and where to use that power instead.

The would-be simple nurse left and Magnus made his call. Moments later, the room lit up in a spirally swirl and she found herself hefted into Jace’s arms once again. Magnus whispered something to him that she didn’t quite get and Jace agreed. Next thing she knew, there were lights and warmth and possibly a sleeping spell cast over her as she well and truly passed out.

She awoke some time later in a bed overflowing with silks and satins. Her arm and leg were still immobilized, but there was only a lingering sense of stiffness more than actual pain remaining. She was also now wearing pajamas of the same soft fabrics, a definite upgrade from the hospital gown, which led her first words to be, “Do I want to know who changed me into these?”

Simon was there almost instantly. A little too close but quite welcomed. He readjusted the coverlet and picked up the non-casted hand to hold between his own. “Magnus did,” he replied. Then, realizing that might sound strange, he amended it to, “Magnus did with magic. No nudity involved. Well, I mean, I’m not positive how it works, really, but one second you were in one thing and the next something else, so...”

There was movement to the left and she found that, though Simon hovered to the right, Jace had taken up station on her other side. “Stop talking,” he requested, in an almost civil tone for him. He leaned closer and tucked a strand of Clary’s hair behind her ear and asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Like I would love to get these things off?” she tried hopefully. She raised her arm slightly and tried to kick her leg, finding it trapped under layers of blankets instead.

Jace smiled and made a shooing motion with his hand. Oddly, Simon acquiesced. He lowered her hand and darted out of the room with a, “She’s awake,” echoing in his wake.

“You’re at Magnus’ instead of the Institute,” he explained when she took in the opulent furnishings that surrounded her. As if knowing what her next question would be, he continued, “We figured bringing you back there would raise far too many questions. The Clave would come after us both over the letting the hospital have our blood, even if we didn’t have a choice in the matter, and would want to grab the baby vamps to set an example for the others. Not exactly a good thing for Downworlder relations.” He tilted his head to the side with a slight wince at the end, and she knew that was an understatement of epic proportions.

“I take it Raphael got a hold of them first?” she guessed.

He nodded. “Three fledglings out on their own for almost the first time. They thought you were going to bring them in for stealing some blood sausage to try to stave off their hunger until they got back to the DuMort.” He shook his head at the ridiculousness of it all. “From the sounds of it, Raphael might still be lecturing them for their stupidity. As it is, they all offer their sincerest apologies. They might even swear an oath to you by the time this is all over.”

She scrunched up her nose at that. “Why would I want a vampire’s oath?” she questioned.

“Because they are far better than favors,” Magnus replied as he poked his head into the room. “Protection, loyalty, et cetera. Never a bad thing to have one, and you may as well have three. Really, Blondie, have you taught her nothing of our ways?” He walked in further, hands on his well dressed hips and a pout of a frown on his lips.

Jace just rolled his eyes and sat back in a rather comfy looking chair. “We’re trying,” he insisted. “There’s just a lot we take for granted so it comes up as it comes up.” 

Magnus nodded as if that was to be expected. He raised a hand and wisps of blue trailed from his fingertips as he hovered it over her, paying special attention to the arm, leg, and ribs. “A certain little Daylighter hinted that you are totally over your affinity for plaster and fiberglass. It was a dreadful fashion choice, really, so I can see why you changed your mind,” he told her.

She huffed a laugh, happy when her ribs didn’t ache at all from the action. The way he smiled hinted to her that he may have intended such a thing to check her responses all along. “Apparently I have moved on to high end loungewear,” she replied with a single raised eyebrow.

“It’s about time, really,” he mock agreed. “Definitely a step up from the old denim and cotton you usually prefer.”

“Hey!” she protested. “You forget that I’ve seen what your other half wears...” she reminded him.

Magnus just sighed wistfully. “Someday, someday I will convince him that he truly is a cashmere and leather kind of guy. Well, leather is a given but...”

Jace had turned the most interesting shade of pink, especially at the tips of his ears. He managed a choked, “Please file that under things I never need to hear about my parabatai?”

Magnus’ eyes sparkled with mirth and Clary knew he had more likely filed it under ways to get the other Shadowhunter worked up instead. She cleared her throat to draw the attention back to the task at hand and asked, “So, any idea how to get these things off of me? Do we need a-”

She was cut off when Magnus simply snapped his fingers and the offending items disappeared.

“That works,” Jace said easily enough so that she didn’t have to.

Magnus clapped his hands as if that were that, but then announced, “Now, there was something about horrible hospital food? Let’s see if we can remedy that for you.”

She unwound herself from the piles of blankets and was quite pleased to find her leg took her weight with absolutely no problem when she dared to stand. Simon helped her into a ridiculously fluffy yet coordinating robe and Jace untucked the hair she inevitably trapped beneath the collar. That sorted, they led her out into the main room, where Alec, Luke, and even Isabelle awaited, as did more types of ice cream than she may have seen in her entire life.

“What is all this?” she asked, taking it all in. There was a cart, similar to Magnus’ usual drinks cart, but covered with an impossible selection of toppings. 

“A little bird mentioned your want of Ben and Jerry’s,” Magnus replied over his shoulder. “Said little bird is a heathen who had never tried gelato, so we’re remedying that right now. Oh, yes, and in case anyone is in the mood for shakes or malts instead...” He snapped his fingers and not one but two separate blenders appeared as well as yet even more ingredients.

“Not that I’m complaining, at all, in any way, but isn’t this a little bit of overkill?” Clary asked.

Luke stood up and gave her a gentle hug as though she were still injured, right before he gestured for her to take his abandoned seat. “This is tame by terms of Magnus Bane,” he promised her.

Even Alec looked like he took it all in stride. “It’s been a while since he’s had a chance to indulge, and there’s far worse options than ice cream,” he reasoned. He started to make himself a banana split, in the appropriate dish of course, only the options were far more extravagant than her local Dairy Queen had ever provided. Also, some of the containers appeared to be labeled in languages that she had yet to identify.

“Chocolate Therapy?” Luke offered because he knew her far too well. When she nodded, he verified, “Scoop or shake?”

Izzy took the option away from her as well as the pint right out of his hands. She shoved a spoon directly into the top and handed it to Clary. At the incredulous look she received, she defensively asked, “What? Unless you want to mix it up and try some others too? You earned your favorite.”

Simon looked up from some elaborate thing he was creating and said, “She likes the coffee one, too.”

Isabelle changed tactics at that and scooped roughly half the pint of the chocolate one into an oversized bowl before she reached for the coffee ice cream and added a ridiculous amount of that as well. “Toppings?” she asked with the seriousness it deserved.

Clary just laughed and decided to go with the flow. A couple of hours ago, she was bedridden, drugged, and in fear for her privacy if not her actual life, or at least a life of experimentation or captivity. Now, she was gorging herself on sugary goodness and watching a normally stoic man embarrass his soulbonded surrogate brother by dryly making lewd suggestions about the options for a different sort of banana split, all in just an innocent enough tone to confuse him further. 

As she accepted the spoonful of something sinfully rich and regrettably unlabeled from an insistent warlock, she decided normal had nothing on the life she now lived, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
